Day Care A welcome guide to childcare at the Ely and Caerau Children’s centre

Welcome to day care This booklet is designed to answer some of the questions you may have about day care. If you have any further queries or feedback, please get in touch. Welcome

PLAY Child-initiated play Play is key to supporting and promoting your child’s learning at day care. Your child will have access to a range of experiences that they can choose to engage with. Equipment is on low-level accessible shelving and each play item has a ‘home’ thereby encouraging and supporting your child in tidying up after play. We encourage the children to take care of their environment and have respect for things. Staff will interact at appropriate times to extend the children’s play by posing problems for them to solve and introducing new language, concepts and ideas. They will help children negotiate with each other where there are disagreements and support them in developing social skills such as turn-taking, sharing, deferred gratification and expressing emotions in appropriate ways. Play can be messy so please do not send your child to day care in their best clothing. Even with the use of aprons clothes will get dirty and may become stained from paint. Adult-led activities These are more structured and planned by staff to offer specific experiences to your child. Examples include: introducing new painting experiences, taking the children on a local walk to observe things, cooking, gardening, den building, using cameras. Outdoor play Both child initiated and adult led structured activities are offered outdoors. We go out in most weathers (with the exception of severe fog, heavy sleet and storms) so please make sure your child has appropriate clothing at day care. A range of play equipment is available to encourage the development of large and small muscles, spatial awareness, balance and coordination.

What will your child need? Personal bag We advise you to provide a bag, small enough to fit on your child’s coat peg at day care, in which to keep your child’s personal belongings. If there are letters to go home we will also put these in your child’s bag, so please make sure you check it regularly. Change of clothing Children can get messy for many reasons. Please provide spare clothes for your child. If we need to change your child during the day, we will put the dirty clothes in your child’s bag for you to take home. We will take children outdoors in a variety of weather conditions so please ensure you have provided clothing that will enable your child to play comfortably. Personal hygiene If your child is using nappies- please provide us with a supply. Please discuss any requirements with your child’s key worker. Staff will let you know when we need further supplies. Comforters Comforters (e.g. a teddy or favourite blanket) often help children when they are settling or at specific times (e.g. sleep times). If your child needs a comforter, please discuss this with your child’s key worker. Please note that apart from comforters we do not encourage children (or parents) to bring in toys from home. If your child does bring a toy into day care we will ask you to take it away with you and this can be quite upsetting for the child. We also cannot accept any responsibility for the safe keeping of such items.

DAY CARE BABY ROOM: OVER TWOS: If you would like to register for a place at day care, please ask for a form at the reception desk or phone: for details Final word We want the day care to be a fun and exciting place for you and your child and for each day to be the best it can be. We appreciate your support and offer many opportunities for you to join in with us and help shape our service. We have a regular newsletter and your contributions to this are very welcome, whether you have found a great place for a day out, have a recipe that your child loves or an amazing book that your child will just not leave alone! We carry out customer surveys every year and really appreciate the time you take to complete these. They give us the most accurate picture of what you think about our service and help us identify any areas we need to improve. We also organise special events and fun days and are always grateful for your help and support.

Safety and security We realise it can be difficult to leave your child. We take our responsibility seriously and have a large number of measures to ensure your child is safe. These include:. Conducting risk assessments and regular reviews.. Controlled door entry to stop unauthorised persons entering the building.. Weekly testing of the fire alarms and termly fire drills.. Regular testing of smoke detectors and servicing of fire equipment and alarms.. Escorting all visitors at all times.. Completing registers for children on entry and leaving and checking them during transitions.. Vetting of staff (for example enhanced disclosure and barring (DBS) checks verification of identity, minimum of two references, qualification check, occupational health check).. Ensure that all staff are trained in paediatric first aid and have level two food hygiene certificates.. Purchasing equipment designed specifically for young children from reputable specialist supplies. Healthy eating At the day care we pride ourselves on providing healthy snacks and drinks. These are available throughout each session. During this time we try to promote independence and use this time to encourage basic hygiene, cleanliness, safety, communication and language skills. The children also gain knowledge of food names and food groups. Annually we gain our gold standard healthy eating award by providing varied and nutritionally balanced snacks. Please look out for our healthy cooking courses available throughout the year. We cater for individual dietary needs in day care. If your child has special requirements this will be discussed during registration. For children with moderate to severe allergies we will do a full risk assessment and care plan to ensure that we minimise the risk of your child being exposed to anything that may trigger an allergic reaction. Our food and drinks policy is available on request.

YOUR KEY WORKER Your child’s key worker is a named staff member who will be your child’s advocate while they are at day care. They are responsible for ensuring that your child’s individual needs are identified and met by the setting. This includes liaising with you, keeping up to date with what is happening outside the day care, observing whatyour child is doing and considering their next steps so that activities and events at day care can be designed to meet your child’s needs. The key worker forms a special bond with your child and is responsible for sharing relevant information with the team to ensure that everybody is working together to give your child the best possible experience while they are with us. Staff work on a shift system at the day care and although your child’s key worker may not always be available, the shift system should enable you to see the key worker at some point during the day. The key worker will introduce you to other team members so that if you wish to pass on any messages verbally you can do this. Likewise the key worker will ensure any messages that need to be passed on to you are shared with their team members before they leave the building. There will be times when your key worker is not present; for example, annual leave, training courses or supporting other teams. Once your child is settled, the key worker will help them to form relationships with other team members so that anxiety and stress when they are absent is minimised.

ACTIVITIES